violence in the workplace, including violence toward staff from patients and families as well as lateral violence, has become a serious safety issue for hospitals in the united states. concerned about this issue, the emergency nurses association and the american organization of nurse executives convened a day of dialogue to discuss ways to mitigate violence in the workplace. the result of the discussion was the development of guiding principles and a toolkit to assist nurse leaders in systemically reducing lateral violence and patient and family violence in hospitals.